SIET to be restored to carry
out EDUSAT programme in Secondary
Schools of Odisha- A Civil Society Call to strengthen Govt. Institution
Dear
friends
On 27.6.17, in a high-level meeting held under chairmanship of Development Commissioner, Govt. of Odisha,
it has been decided to cover Edusat ( Education through
Satellite) programme in all secondary schools
of the state. The programme will be transmitted through Doordarshan.
But it deserves to be mentioned here that
this programme was first started by the Central Govt. in six states
including Odisha having
availability of INSAT. The Central Govt.
was funding in toto for this programme. In 1982, SIET ( State Institute of Education and
Technology ) , as an autonomous body was
formed by State Govt. to carry out ICT @
school programme in the schools. Edusat
is one of the components of the programme. It was functioning under
School and Mass Education Department. SIET has trained and experienced 87 technical and non-technical staff who were on deputation from the Govt. and specially recruited for the said programme. with cent percent financial support from Central Govt., SIET has developed
its own studio with costly camera, instrument, infrastructure and doing
fantastic work in developing
audio-visual materials for the students which
was being telecast by
Doordarshan. All the schools were
provided colour TV and
Radio-cum-Cassette player to watch the programme.
When the programme was going on successfully, the State
Govt. closed down SIET by brining out notification dated 29.4.2013 citing
3 reasons like cessation of fund
by Central Govt. for ICT @
school programme, disturbance
created by employees and unwillingness
of Staff to generate revenue to run SIET
in a self-sustained mode, loss of
viability of SIET and subsequently retrenched all staff. Perturbed over the said notification, RTI Application was filed
to the CPIO, Ministry of Human Resource Development , Govt. of
India seeking copy of the decision taken at Central Govt. level to close down SIET. The CPIO responded that there was no such decision
taken to close down SIET. But on RTI
query, the State Govt. in Dept. of School and Mass Education Dept. provided
copy of a false and fabricated letter of Central Govt. to close down SIET. On query
about other two reasons, the
Dept. could not provide any satisfactory
response.
Then, the retrenched employees armed
with RTI response challenged arbitrary decision of State Govt. to close down
SIET in High Court. While hearing the
case ( W.P.C. No. 11195/2013)
, the hon’ble High Court directed
the State Govt. to produce the copy
of the letter in which the
Central Govt. had asked State Govt. to close down SIET.
The Secretary, Dept. of S & ME could not produce the letter but begged
unconditional apology for the mistake in May 2017.
From the RTI expose, it was found that the
Central Govt. has released Rs. 40 crore
to Govt. of Odisha in the year- 2012-13 to continue the programme. Now the question comes when there was availability
of fund, why the Govt. of Odisha decided to close down SIET. It was masterminded
by Bijay Patnaik, then Chief Secretary, Odisha
along with a coterie of bureaucrats to swindle this fund for their
vested interest. Accordingly, a
fraud company named OKCL ( Odisha
Knowledge Corporation Limited ) as Govt. Company
( it is not Govt. company later on it
was exposed under RTI) was
created over night with Gazette
Notification and without tender an amount of Rs. 200 crore was transferred to OKCL. It has come to our notice that OKCL
is managed by kith and kin of Odisha bureaucrats. A PIL case has been filed and pending in
Odisha High Court challenging formation
of OKCL and fund illegally diverted to OKCL
without tender.
So, we demand that
SIET which is an autonomous body with trained personnel should be restored and all ICT @ school programme including Edusat to be handed over to SIET with reappointment
of employees retrenched by the State Govt.
Pradip
Pradhan
M-9937843482
Date- 12.7.17
i like ict @ school siet
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